The Year of the Quiet Sun

by Wilson Tucker

  Following instructions, he climbed into the TDV.

  Chaney wriggled through the hatch, lowered himself onto the sling-like bed, and promptly banged his head against the camera mounted inside the bubble. It hurt.

  “Damn it!”

  The engineer said reprovingly: “Please be more careful of the camera, Mr. Chaney.”

  “You could hang that thing outside the bucket.”

  Inching lower onto the flimsy bed, he discovered that when his feet reached the kickbar there was insufficient room to turn his head without striking either the camera or the gyroscope, nor could he push out his elbows. He squinted up at the engineer in protest but the man’s face disappeared from the opening as the hatch was slammed shut. Chaney had a moment of panic but fought it away; the drum was no worse than a cramped tomb — and better in one small respect: the transparent bubble admitted light from the ceiling fixtures. Still following the detailed instructions, he reached up to snug the hatch and was immediately rewarded by a blinking green bull’s eye above his head. He thought that was nice.

  Chaney watched the light for a space but nothing else happened.

  Aloud: “All right, move it.” The sound of his voice in the closed can startled him.

  Twisting around at the expense of a strained neck muscle and another glancing blow off the camera, he peered through the bubble at the outside room but saw no one. It was supposed to be empty during a launch. He guessed that his companions were in the lab beyond the wall, watching him on the monitors as he had watched them. The sounds had been thunderously loud in there, causing acute pain to his eardrums.

  Chaney’s gaze came back to the green light against the hull above his head, and discovered that a red light beside it was now blazing, blinking in the same monotonous fashion as its brother. He stared at the two lights and wondered what he was supposed to do next. Instructions hadn’t gone beyond that point.

  He was aware that his knees were raised and that his legs ached; the interior of the bucket wasn’t designed for a man who stood six feet four and had to share the space with a camera and gyroscope. Chaney lowered his knees and stretched out full length on the webbed sling, but he had forgotten the kickbar until his bare feet struck it. The red light winked out.

  After a while someone rapped on the plastic bubble, and Chaney twisted around to see Arthur Saltus motioning for him to come out. He opened the hatch and sat up. When he was in a comfortable position, he found that he could rest his chin on the rim of the hatch and look down into the room.

  Saltus stood there grinning at him. “Well, mister, what did you think of that?”

  “There’s more room in a Syrian coffin,” Chaney retorted. “I’ve got bruises.”

  “Sure, sure, civilian, tight quarters and everything, but what did you think of it?”

  “Think of what?”

  “Well, the—” Saltus stopped to gape in disbelief. “Civilian, do you mean to sit there like an idiot and tell me you weren’t watching that clock?”

  “I watched the lights; it was like Christmas time.”

  “Mister, they ran you through your test. You saw ours, didn’t you? You checked the time?”

  “Yes, I watched you.”

  “Well, you jumped into the future! One hour up!”

  “The hell I did.”

  “The hell you didn’t, civilian. What did you think you were doing in there — taking a nap? You were supposed to watch the clock. You went up an hour, and then you kicked yourself back. That stuffy old engineer was mad — you were supposed to wait for him to do it.”

  “But I didn’t hear anything, feel anything.”

  “You don’t hear anything in there; just out here, on the outside looking in. Man, we heard it! Pow, pow, the airhammer. And the guy was supposed to tell you there was no sense of motion: just climb in, and climb out. Shoot an hour.” Saltus made a face. “Civilian, sometimes you disappoint me.”

  “Sometimes I disappoint myself,” Chaney said. “I’ve missed the most exciting hour of my life. I guess it was exciting. I was looking at the lights and waiting for something to happen.”

  “It did happen.” Saltus stepped down from the stool. “Come on out of there and get dressed. We have to listen to a lecture from old windbag in the lab — and after that we inspect the ship’s stores. The fallout shelter, food and water and stuff; we might have to live off the stores when we get up there to the brink of 2000. What if everything is rationed, and we don’t have ration cards?”

  “We can always call Katrina and ask for some.”

  “Hey — Katrina will be an old woman, have you thought of that? She’ll be forty-five or fifty, maybe — I don’t know how old she is now. An old woman — damn!”

  Chaney grinned at his concept of ancient age. “You won’t have time for dating. We have to hunt Republicans.”

  “Guess not — nor the opportunity. We’re not supposed to go looking for anybody when we get up there; we’re not supposed to look for her or Seabrooke or even us. They’re afraid we’ll find us.” He made a weary gesture. “Get your pants on. Damned lecture. I hate lectures — I always fall asleep.”

  A team of engineers lectured. Major Moresby listened attentively. Chaney listened with half an ear, attention wandering to Kathryn van Hise who was seated at one side of the room. Arthur Saltus slept.

  Chaney wished the information given him had been printed on the usual mimeographed papers and passed around a table for study. That method of dissemination was the more effective for him; the information stayed with him when he could read it on a printed page and refer back to the sentence or the paragraph above to underscore a point. It was more difficult to call back a spoken reference without asking questions, which interrupted the speaker and the chain of thought and the drone which kept Saltus sleeping. The ideal way would be to set down the lecture in Aramaic or Hebrew and hand it to him to translate; that would insure his undivided attention to learn the message.

  He gave one eye and one ear to the speaker.

  Target dates. Once a target date was selected and the pertinent data was at hand, computers determined the exact amount of energy needed to achieve that date and then fed the amount into the tachyon generator in one immense surge. The resulting discharge against the deflector provided momentum by displacing temporal strata ahead of the vehicle along a designated time path; the displaced strata created a vacuum into which the vehicle moved toward the target date, always under the guidance of the mercury proton gyroscope. (Chaney thought: perpetual motion.)

  The engineer said: “You can be no more than eighty-eight minutes off the designated hour of the target date, 2000. That is four minutes per year; that is to be anticipated. But there is another significant time element to be noted in the field, one that you must not forget. Fifty hours. You may spend up to fifty hours in the field on any date, but you may not exceed that amount. It is an arbitrary limit. To be sure, gentlemen, the safety of the displaced man is of first importance up to a point. Up to a point.” He stared at the sleeping Saltus. “After that point the repossession of the vehicle will be of first importance.”

  “I read you,” Chaney told him. “We’re expendable; the bucket isn’t.”

  “I cannot agree to that, Mr. Chaney. I prefer to say that at the expiration of fifty hours the vehicle will be recalled to enable a second man to go forward, if that is deemed advisable, to effect the recovery of the first.”

  “If he can be found,” Chaney added.

  Flatly: “You are not to remain on target beyond the arbitrary fifty-hour limit. We have only one vehicle; we don’t wish to lose it.”

  “That is quite sufficient,” Moresby assured him. “We can do the job in half that time, after all.”

  Upon completion of their assignment, each of them would return to the laboratory sixty-one seconds after the original launch, whether they remained on target one hour or fifty. The elapsed time in the field did not affect their return. They would be affected only by the elapsed time while in the
field; those few hours of natural aging could not be recaptured or neutralized of course.

  The necessities and some few of the luxuries of life were stored in the shelter: food, medicines, warm clothing, weapons, money, cameras and recorders, shortwave radios, tools. If storage batteries capable of giving service for ten or twenty years were developed in the near future, they would also be stocked for use. The radios were equipped to send and receive on both military and civilian channels; they could be powered by electricity available in the shelter or by batteries when used with a conversion unit. The shelter was fitted with lead-in wires, permitting the radios to be connected to an outside antenna, but once outside on the target minitennas built into the instruments would serve for a range of approximately fifty miles. The shelter was stocked with gasoline lanterns and stoves; a fuel tank was built into an outside wall.

  After emerging from the vehicle, each man was to close the hatch and carefully note the time and date. He was to check his watch against the wall clock for accuracy and to determine the plus-or-minus variation. Before leaving the basement area to enter his target date he was to equip himself from the stores, and note any sign of recent use of the shelter. He was forbidden to open any other door or enter any other room of the building; in particular, he was forbidden to enter the laboratory where the engineers would be preparing his return passage, and forbidden to enter the briefing room where someone might be waiting out the arrival and departure.

  He was to follow the basement corridor to the rear of the building, climb a flight of stairs and unlock the door for exit. He would be instructed where to locate the two keys necessary to turn the twin locks of the door. Only the three of them would ever use that door.

  Chaney asked: “Why?”

  “That has been designated the operations door. No other personnel are authorized to use it: field men only.”

  Beyond the door was a parking lot. Automobiles would be kept there continuously for their exclusive use; they would be fueled and ready on any target date. They were cautioned not to drive a new model car until they became thoroughly familiar with the controls and handling of it. Each man would be furnished the properly dated papers for gate passage, and was to carry a reasonable sum of money sufficient to meet anticipated expenses.

  Saltus was awake. He poked at Chaney. “You can fly to Florida in fifty hours — have a swim and still get back in time. Here’s your chance, civilian.”

  “I can walk to Chicago in fifty,” Chaney retorted.

  Their mission was to observe, film, record, verify; to gather as much data as possible on each selected date. Observations should also be made (and a permanent record left in the shelter) that would benefit the next man on his target. They were to bring in with them all exposed films and tapes but the instruments were to be stored in the shelter for the following man to use. A number of small metal discs each weighing an ounce would be placed in the vehicle before launch; the proper number of discs was to be thrown overboard before returning to compensate for the tapes and films being brought back.

  Were there any questions?

  Arthur Saltus stared at the engineer with sleepy eyes. Major Moresby said: “None at the moment, thank you.” Chaney shook his head.

  Kathryn van Hise claimed their attention. “Mr. Chaney, you have another appointment with the doctor in half an hour. When you are finished there, please come to the rifle range; you really should begin weapons training.

  “I’m not going to run around Chicago shooting up the place — they have enough of that now.”

  “This will be for your own protection, sir.”

  Chaney opened his mouth to continue the protest, but was stopped. The sound was something like a massive rubber band snapped against his eardrums, something like a hammer or a mallet smashing into a block of compressed air. It made a noise of impact, followed by a reluctant sigh as if the hammer was rebounding in slow motion through an oily fluid. The sound hurt.

  He looked around at the engineers with a question, and found the two men staring at each other with blank astonishment. With a single mind they deserted the room on the run.

  Saltus said: “Now what the hell?”

  “Somebody went joyriding,” Chaney replied. “They’d better count the monkeys — one may be missing.”

  Katrina said: “There were no tests scheduled.”

  “Can that machine take off by itself?”

  “No, sir. It must be activated by human control.”

  Chaney had a suspicion and glanced at his watch. The suspicion blossomed into conviction and despite himself he failed to suppress a giggle. “That was me, finishing my test. I hit that kickbar by accident just an hour ago.”

  Saltus objected. “My test didn’t make a noise like that. William didn’t.”

  Chaney showed him the watch. “You said I went up an hour. That’s now. Did you kick yourself back?”

  “No — we waited for the engineers to pull us back.”

  “But I kicked; I propelled myself from here, from a minute ago.” He looked at the door through which the two men had run. “If that computer has registered a power loss, I did it. Do you suppose they’ll take it out of my pay?”

  They were outside in the warm sunshine of a summer afternoon. The Illinois sky was dark and clouded in the far west, promising a night storm.

  Arthur Saltus looked at the storm clouds and asked: “I wonder if those engineers were sweeping bilge? Do you think they really know what they’re talking about? Power surges and time paths and water that won’t leak?”

  Chaney shrugged. “A hair perhaps divides the false from the true. They have the advantage.”

  Saltus gave him a sharp glance. “You’re borrowing again — and I think you’ve changed it to boot.”

  “A word or two,” Chaney acknowledged. “Do you recall the rest of it? The remaining three lines of the verse?”

  “No.”

  Chaney repeated the verse, and Saltus said: “Yes.”

  “All right, Commander. That machine down there is our Alif; the TDV is an Alif. With it, we can search for the treasure house.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybes: we can. We can search out all the treasure houses in history. The archeologists and the historians will go crazy with joy.” He followed the man’s gaze to the west, where he thought he heard low thunder. “If this wasn’t a political project it wouldn’t be wasted on Chicago. The Smithsonian would have a different use for the vehicle.”

  “Hah — I can read your mind, civilian! You wouldn’t go up at all, you’d go back. You’d go scooting back to the year Zero, or some such, and watch those old scribes make scrolls. You’ve got a one-track mind.”

  “Not so,” Chaney denied. “And there was no year Zero. But you’re right about one thing: I wouldn’t go up. Not with all the treasure houses of history waiting to be opened, explored, cataloged. I wouldn’t go up.”

  “Where then, mister? Back where?”

  Chaney said dreamily: “Eridu, Larsa, Nippur, Kish, Kufah, Nineveh, Uruk…”

  “But those are just old — old cities, I guess.”

  “Old cities, old towns, long dead and gone — as Chicago will be when its turn comes. They are the treasure houses, Commander. I want to stand on the city wall at Ur and watch the Euphrates flood; I want to know how that story got into Genesis. I want to stand on the plains before Uruk and see Gilgamesh rebuild the city walls; I want to see that legendary fight with Enkidu.

  “But more, I want to stand in the forests of Kadesh and see Muwatallis turn back the Egyptian tide. I think you’d both like to see that. Muwatallis was out-manned, out-wheeled, lacking everything but guts and intelligence; he caught Ramses’ army separated into four divisions and what he did to them changed the course of Western history. It happened three thousand years ago but if the Hittites had lost — if Ramses had beaten Muwatallis — we’d likely be Egyptian subjects today.”

  Saltus: “I can’t speak the language.”

  “You woul
d be speaking it — or some local dialect — if Ramses had won.” A gesture. “But that’s what I’d do if I had the Alif and the freedom of choice.”

  Arthur Saltus stood lost in thought, looking at the western cloudbank. The thunder was clearly heard.

  After a space he said: “I can’t think of a blessed thing, mister. Not one thing I’d want to see. I may as well go up to Chicago.”

  “I stand in awe before a contented man,” Chaney said. “The dust bin of history is no more than that.”

  EIGHT

  Brian Chaney was splashing in the pool the next morning before most of the station personnel had finished their breakfasts. He swam alone, enjoying the luxury of solitude after his customary walk from the barracks. The early morning sun was blindingly bright on the water, a contrast from the night just past: the station had been raked by a severe thunderstorm during the night, and blown debris still littered the streets.

  Chaney turned on his back and filled his lungs with air, to float lazily on the surface of the pool. He was contented. His eyes closed to shut out the brightness.

  He could almost imagine himself back on the Florida beach — back to that day when he loafed at the water’s edge, watching the gulls and the distant sail and doing nothing more strenuous than speculating on the inner fears of the critics and readers who had damned him and damned his translation of the Revelations scroll. Yes, and back to the day before he’d met Katrina. Chaney hadn’t been aware of a personal vacuum then, but when they parted — when this mission was finished — he would be aware of one. He would miss the woman. Parting company with Katrina would hurt, and when he went back to the beach he’d be keenly aware of the new vacuum.